


Dog Tags

by Bobbie23



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Character Death, Dog Tags, F/M, Sam and Jack Ship Day 2020 (Stargate)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25565821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobbie23/pseuds/Bobbie23
Summary: Two scenes for the same prompt. Both very similar with different settings, so there’s an overlap of dialogue. I couldn’t decide which one to post, so I posted both. I would love to know which one you guys prefer.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 12
Kudos: 52





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Two scenes for the same prompt. Both very similar with different settings, so there’s an overlap of dialogue. I couldn’t decide which one to post, so I posted both. I would love to know which one you guys prefer.

Shortly after Anubis’ last attack is deemed just that, after the entire base is checked and rechecked, Sam slips away from the crowd in the briefing room. She needs some space. She’s been able to keep a handle on her emotions for this long. She won’t last much longer. She’s lost that adrenaline high and there’s nothing to distract her from her father’s death. She’s done her duty as her father would have expected, as he would have wanted.

She freezes outside of the morgue, unable to actually cross the threshold. She looks longingly at the silver door protecting her father’s body only the urge to flee is too strong to resist and she spins on her heel and walks as fast as she can in the opposite direction until she reaches the elevator banks. She jabs the call button and folds her arms across her chest to stop herself from continuously jabbing it as she waits. Thankfully the elevator is empty once the door pings open and she manages to travel to the level of personal quarters without stopping.

When she arrives at the floor, two SF’s are waiting to board and they stand aside for her to disembark. Sam barely acknowledges them as she blindly weaves through them. As soon as she hears the doors slide shut, she breaks into a slight jog her vision blurring as she draws closer to the door at the end of the hall. Her breathing quickens as she blinks away the tears. She swipes her access card through the reader and almost slams the door open when the light turns green. Once inside, the door closes behind her with a bang and she falls back against it. After several steadying breaths, she regains her composure.

Straightening, Sam moves into her father’s room. Her fingers run along the edge of the table as her eyes travel over the rest of the room for an idea of where to start. Her eyes stop on his dresser and she figures it’s as good as any place. She pulls the top drawer open to reveal his Tok’ra garb.

As Sam removes them and places them on the bed, an envelope falls onto the base from where it was wedged between the clothes and the side. She frowns at it as she picks it up to find the envelope blank. Peering inside she finds photos of herself, her brother at different ages and moments. There is a couple of her mother, one from their wedding day. Sam’s eyes mist over again as she walks blindly over to the bed and sits.

She goes through them, one by one. Smiling, laughing as she remembers the memory. There’s a couple she’s never seen, Jacob’s never shown her. She finds one with her as a teenager. She stands on a ladder with paint in her hair hanging a banner for Jacob’s birthday which coincided with his return from his latest deployment. Her mom had taken the picture and given it to him after they were developed.

Sam licks her lips as she tastes the salty tears rolling down her face. Her hand swipes at her cheek, rushing them away. She never knew her dad kept these here. Setting the envelope aside, as uses her sleeve to dab at her eyes. A knock at the door brings her out of her thoughts. Then there’s the sound of a card being swiped and the bleep of the door opening. Jack pops his head around the door, searching for her.

“Sir? Do you need me for something?”

“No, no,” Jack assures her, waving her back down as she starts to stand. “Just wanted to check-in. Am I interrupting?” He asks softly.

She looks up at him with watery eyes, shaking her head. No one knows how to find her as he does, he always finds her. “No, I, uh, I just needed somewhere quiet.”

Jack looks her up and down, gaging her demeanour, before repeating, “Am I interrupting?”

It was only a matter of time before he or Teal’c found her. Sending him away would only worry him. She wipes her eyes again and gives him half a smile. “No, Sir.”

Jack hesitates, looks behind him at the hall before he slips around the door. He looks between the bed and the chair, deciding where to sit. He opts to sit beside her, leaving a respectable distance if anyone disturbs them. He gestures at pictures in her hand, “Whatcha got there?”

“Photos my dad kept here. I never knew he had them,” she whispers. He reaches out to take them from her with a curious smile.

Sam watches him flip through the images, chuckling at one of her and Jacob as they were gesturing at the camera in exasperation. She thinks Mark took it just after their father blended with Selmak. She looks down and notices the discarded clothes. She picks up the top and somethings clinks to the floor as it unravels. Bending, she retrieves the set of dog tags. She doesn’t know what it is but her eyes fill with tears again.

“This is silly,” she chastises herself, swiping at her eyes. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. She needs to get a grip. She feels like everyone expects so much from her, expects her to hold it together and most of the time she does. Right now, she can’t. For some reason, she’s never allowed herself to think about, Jack makes her feel safe enough to fall apart.

“It’s your Dad, Carter,” Jack reminds her. “It’s okay to cry.”

She opens her hand to show him the set of dog tags. The words Jacob Carter stand out amongst the USAF brand, his service number and blood type. “He wasn’t supposed to take them with him.” She turns them in her hand.

“Old habits, Carter,” Jack murmurs.

She nods to herself. She’s so used to wearing them she feels bare without her tags. Something’s missing when she doesn’t carry their weight around her neck. Her father’s career was double hers. “Yeah,” she agrees brokenly. Her thumb passes over her dad’s name. She huffs as more tears roll down her face. “Oh, God.”

Sam feels Jack watching her, his hesitation, his need to comfort her and make it better. This is one thing he can’t make better. He’s not eloquent like Daniel or as quiet as Teal’c. He underestimates how much his presence comforts her. It feels like it’s been so long since they’ve let themselves be this unguarded. She doesn’t have the strength to keep those walls up even if she wanted to.

She thinks of Selmak. She let herself believe Jacob would live for a lot longer when they blended. She thought, she assumed, he’d outlive her if they survived the war with the Gou’ald. There’s so much she never told him, never asked. “I miss them.”

“Got to admit, Selmak was one of the good ones,” Jack admits. He lost someone too, today. He considered Jacob one of the team. He always takes those losses hard. “And Dad was…well, Dad.”

Sam chuckles, ducks her head despite feeling shattered. “He liked you.”

“I don’t know if I’d put it that way,” he replies with a shrug.

“He did,” she insists. “He let you get away with calling him Dad,” Sam reminds him.

“Well, it’s not the first impression I got,” Jack counters, his eyes drifting over her.

“No, he thought we were sleeping together when he first met you,” she admits candidly. She can’t think of any reason to keep that to herself anymore. She sighs thinking back to their first meeting, her father never said anything. She just knew that’s what he assumed. “He started liking you after he realised that we weren’t sleeping together,” Sam adds.

“Ah,” he comments more to himself, than her.

Sam watches him process that; she doesn’t let herself indulge in this as often as she’d like to. A lot of things cross his features as it sinks in. There was an understanding between them. One she doubts either of them uttered aloud. They were like that. Sure, they traded sarcastic banter, just like every flyboy she knows but her father knew Jack was a good man. Jacob trusted him. The depth of that trust continuously shocked her until the end. Until her father urged her to be happy. She knew he meant with Jack.

Until that moment she assumed he’d chosen not to see her feelings for Jack. No father likes to discuss that part of their daughter’s lives. Given his dedication to the Air Force, she never thought he’d ever give his blessing to her falling in love with her commanding officer. She couldn’t even admit it to him, not even when he was urging her to follow her heart.

“He cared about you because you care about me,” she continues when he says nothing else. Truth is, she knows her dad would’ve done anything for her. He did. When he and Teal’c were adrift in the X-301. When he was infected with a virus…Jacob knew losing Jack would devastate her.

“Always,” Jack vows solemnly. He turns to her and she’s struck by all the changes in him. The full head of silver hair, the cut separating his eyebrow, a few wrinkles here and there. His eyes are still the same, quintessentially Jack O’Neill. Earnest, caring, playful when he wants to be. He still has that rugged charm she thought was attractive in their first meeting despite thinking he was being an ass who wanted her nowhere near his team. Eight years. It feels like longer.

Jack drops his eyes to the tags in her hand. His fingers brush hers as he takes them from her. He turns the metal over in his hands, runs his finger over the letters before he lets them fall through his fingers till he can grip the small beaded necklace. He glances at her hands, noticing her bare ring finger. “Where’s your ring?”

Sam stares at her unadorned hand. “I gave it back to Pete,” she replies simply.

“Carter,” he starts with a grimace. “You shouldn’t make any hasty decisions,” he suggests. “Not this soon after your Dad-.”

“No,” she interrupts him with a shake of her head. She pushes off the bed and crosses the room, not really sure where she’s going but she needs space. Once she reaches the wall, she spins on her heel to face him. He’s observing her closely, seeing right through her.

“I can’t marry Pete. I knew that before Dad…” she tries to utter the word but she chokes lightly. She shakes her head again, holding his stare. “I should’ve called it off a long time ago.”

She gave up, on herself, on Jack. There might not be a chance, not when Jack’s found someone but she can’t go on fooling herself like this. Sam looks down at Jack and sees he has no idea what to do with that information. She knows the feeling.

Jack cautiously meets her stare before looking back down at his hands. He fiddles with the dog tags. “Kerry called it off.”

Sam takes half a step forward. “Why?”

“Being in love with someone else is a deal-breaker.”

Sam looks down at Jack, too stunned to react, to admit she feels the same. This isn’t how she imagined reacting if he ever told her he loved her. She imagined a tangle of limbs and murmured confessions. This is neither. She’s overcome with feelings jumbling inside of her. Her head and heart hurt and his admission adds to her pain. She gives up trying to make sense of them. She’s so damn tired.

She startles when she feels his hands skimming her shoulders. She didn’t register him rising from the bed.

“Let me drive you home.”

Sam tips her head back to see him. Her breath catches at the concern she sees there. “Stay with me?”

“Always.”

Just as Jack turns to the door, she catches his arm. He turns back to her. “Dad knew,” she tells him. “Dad knew it’s always been you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Funeral guests linger in the foyer of the crematorium waiting for directions to the wake. Daniel moves through the crowd with Mark, telling a select few to pass the address on to out of towners. GPS helps at times like this. People slowly start to move, clearing the entrance, leaving Jack with Mark, his wife Lisa, their two kids, Daniel and Teal’c. They each share a look as they realise a member of their group is missing.

Mark and Daniel do a quick check behind them, just to be sure Sam isn’t going to appear from around a corner. Daniel is about to check with the funeral director when Jack shakes his head.

Jack noticed her duck out for some air a while ago. Her car is still in the lot next to Daniel’s, he figures she’s still in the grounds somewhere. He digs around for his house keys, holds up Carter’s key to Daniel before tossing the set to the archaeologist. Daniel catches them against his chest, sharply glances at Jack. “Why don’t you take Mark, Lisa and the kids over to Carter’s for the wake? Teal’c and I will track down Carter and meet you there.”

Jack ignores the leery look Mark bestows him with. It’s not the first, and it probably won’t be the last. It hits Jack as it’s pure Jacob, pre-Selmak. Carter and Mark take after their mother but there are odd moments when they’ll get a look – be it concentration, bull-headed or questioning – which is all Jacob. He wonders what either of them would say if he pointed it out. He shakes it off as Lisa says goodbye and ushers her husband to follow Daniel with an eye roll. Carter’s niece surprises him with a hug as her mother fondly tells her to move it. Her little brother waves at him and Teal’c as he follows the group into the parking lot.

Alone, Jack turns to Teal’c. “She’s got to be around here somewhere,” Jack says, feeling his chest contract. He’s usually pretty good at keeping track of her.

Teal’c inclines his head toward the back door. “I believe Colonel Carter is sitting on a bench in the grounds.”

Thank God, he’s not the only one keeping an eye on her.

Jack swallows the lump in his throat as he looks between Teal’c and the door. Teal’c’s eyes bore into him for a second longer than necessary before he turns his attention to the display of thank you cards from past mourners. This is on Jack, Teal’c’ll stand guard as he has so many times for them in the past.

He breathes in, holding it as he pushes through the door. He spots her almost immediately. Sat about fifty yards from the building, Jacob’s flag in her lap, she stares at a spot he can’t see. He falters for a moment, reminds himself Charlie is buried in another graveyard. He focuses on Carter as he squares his shoulders before pushing forward.

He doesn’t take his eyes off her as he approaches, afraid she’ll disappear if he does. She looks absolutely shattered, a little dazed. She’s spent the better part of the week running interference between the brass and her brother over arrangements. There’s tension between the siblings and Jack’s presence seems to exasperate it.

Her eyes are fixed on a point low to the ground as he approaches. He walks loudly, trying not to spook her. She ignores him like she the grey clouds threatening to let rip any minute. Her dress blues are immaculate as the wind picks up speed. The approaching storm promises to light up the sky. Jack thinks it’s fitting. On the day Jacob and Selmak are laid to rest, there’s hell to pay.

Jacob’s ashes won’t stay here, half will be scattered by Carter somewhere. The rest will be handed over to the Tok’ra. Jack doesn’t want to be the one to tell Carter someone desecrated the crematorium for her father’s ashes.

“Am I interrupting?” He asks quietly. She looks up at him with watery eyes, unsurprised by his presence, and shakes her head.

“I was just visiting with my mom,” Carter tells him, gesturing at a plaque in front of one of the rose bushes.

Jack follows her hand and takes in the bush with perfect blush blooms, repeating, “Am I interrupting?”

She shoots him half a smile. “No, Sir.”

Jack takes his hat off as he sits next to her. He trails his fingers along the rim, twirling the hat as they sit in silence. He gives her a minute, waiting for her to talk. She’s quite content to sit quietly. He’s not uncomfortable per se, he knows she’ll hate herself for wallowing. He tosses his hat onto the bench next to him and scoots a fraction closer. She turns to him, completely unguarded.

“If you wanted to skip the wake, you just had to say,” Jack half-jokes when the silence becomes unbearable. She hides her eye roll with a blink.  


“Mark would never forgive me,” Carter tells him.

“That’s not a no,” Jack points out. Her lips crack just a tad.

Her hands move in her lap and he notices the small string of metal beads wrapped around her fingers. “Whatcha got there?”

She opens her hand to reveal a set of dog tags. Jacob Carter stands out amongst the USAF title, his service number and blood type. She sighs softly, turning them in her hand. “It’s silly, the Tok’ra found them in Dad’s things. He wasn’t even supposed to have them.”

“Old habits, Carter,” Jack reminds her. He feels naked without his tags. Something’s missing when he doesn’t carry their weight around his neck. Or when they don’t brush his chest over his heart.

If someone dies in the field, only one tag makes it home to the family through their team, through whoever finds them. Jacob didn’t die in the field, Sam got to hold his hand as he passed.

“I, uh, I…” she hesitates. “I wanted to have a set made for Selmak but I would never be allowed to keep them.”

No, she wouldn’t. Not officially. But Jack can think of a handful of people who can discreetly appropriate a set. He wants to say or do something to comfort her. He can’t easily pull her to him as he did in the infirmary, even with Teal’c standing guard. He wants to help her find some way to honour Selmak. “Selmak was one of the good ones.”

“She gave me my dad back.” She pauses. “She was a side of Dad that Mark will never know about.”

“You can’t feel guilty about this, Carter, neither of them would want you to.” He gets a halfhearted shrug in return. Easier said than done. He nods at her mother’s plaque. “What would Mom think of Selmak?”

Her lips quirk at that; either his question or calling her mother Mom, Jack doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. “He was always happiest when he was with mom. He used to surprise her by dancing her around the living room to songs she loved that he hated.” Sam pauses, a whistful smile settling on her face. “She was a lot like Selmak. She didn’t say much. When she did, everyone listened even Dad,” she smiles. “They would have gotten along, I think.”  


Jack tries to work out how that would work only to give up a few seconds later. He’s confused. Luckily, Sam doesn’t notice his momentary lapse.

“Dad was lucky, he found two people to share his life with.” He wonders if he’ll ever be as lucky as Jacob.

“Mom would’ve liked you,” she says, surprising him. “Dad liked you.”

“Yeah?” He raises his eyebrows at her. Jacob was a good man, a soldier, a father. They had a few things in common, mostly Sam. They bantered back and forth. Jacob tolerated his sense of humour most of the time, watched him a little too closely at other times.

“Can you not pretend you didn’t know he cared about you right now?” Sam sounds tired as she picks at a small leaf which dared to land on her skirt.  


“That’s not the first impression I got,” Jack counters.

“Well, no, he thought we were sleeping together when you first met.”

“Ah,” he comments more to himself, not sure what to say, forcing himself to keep a straight face. It explains a lot. If Jacob thought he was some sleazy CO corrupting his daughter, Jack’s surprised he survived their first encounter.

“He liked you after he realised we weren’t sleeping together,” Sam adds. “He liked you because I care about you.”

Jack guesses that went both ways. He was already invested in Jacob because he was Sam’s father. Jack liked him once they got to know each other, not just because they had a common interest in Sam’s welfare. Jacob pulled him out of a lot of scrapes, greeting him with a comment or two. Selmak wasn’t as stuck up as the rest of the Tok’ra. They both challenged him without imposing their seniority, he liked the balance they struck. They complemented each other. If Jack could be convinced all blendings were all like theirs, he might be more lenient on the Tok’ra.

“He cared about you because you care about me,” she continues when he says nothing. “He wouldn't have let you get away with calling him Dad if he didn’t.”

Grief must be making her brave because he doubts they would be having this conversation if she wasn’t grieving. She doesn’t break his gaze when he turns to her. He isn’t surprised Jacob saw right through him, most people do. “Yeah,” he agrees softly. He still cares about her. Always has.  
He lets his eyes drop to the tags in her hand. He’s carried a few of these in his time. It’s always hard, always heavy on his heart but he’s glad he never had to carry these ones home to her. His fingers brush hers as he takes them from her. He turns the metal over in his hands, runs his finger over the letters before he lets them drop and he grips the small beaded necklace. He glances at her hands, resting on the flag in her lap, notices her bare ring finger. “Where’s your ring?”

Jack curses himself for asking only Sam doesn’t bat an eye. Shanahan has been notably absent and Jack, never one to give up small mercies, hasn’t questioned it before. No one else has either.

“I gave it back to Pete,” comes her simple reply. “He and I wanted different things.”

“Like what?”

“He wanted a house and a dog and I wanted to talk to you,” she admits honestly. She moves forward to the edge of the bench, reaching to cover his hand with her own. “I _still_ want to talk to you.”

Clearly, she doesn’t mean now. It’s not an appropriate conversation for the gardens of a crematorium or during the wake when people will be paying their respects to her father. He turns his hand to weave his fingers through hers. “Is it okay if I take a rain check?” Her eyes slide closed as she nods. He doesn’t blame her, she took a risk by being honest with him. “I believe we’re expected at your place, Carter,” he reminds her.

She opens her eyes. “Just a rain check?”

“Just a rain check,” Jack promises. He’s not trying to get out of this. Teal’c steps out the back door with his phone to his ear. “I think that’s our cue.”  


Sam lets him pull her up from the bench, their hands still clasped as they walk down the path to Teal’c. She tucks Jacob’s flag under her other arm. When he hands her Jacob’s dog tags, she slips them into her pocket.

“When we do talk, will you ask me to go fishing?”

“Will you say yes?”

“Yes.”


End file.
